Saturday, November 06, 2004

FBI Says N.Y. Man Had Beltway Blueprints (washingtonpost.com)

"NEW YORK, Nov. 5 -- Prosecutors alleged Friday that a Syrian-born doctor had blueprints for a suburban Washington overpass in his Brooklyn apartment and tried to help a suspected al Qaeda associate enter the United States.

... The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force found the shredded blueprints for the Capital Beltway overpass at Connecticut Avenue in Hassan Faraj's apartment after he was arrested in June, prosecutors said.

... [Attorney Stanley] Cohen said the blueprints, for example, belonged to Faraj's brother, a professor of civil engineering who had been teaching at a Washington area university. Faraj threw out the papers after the brother moved overseas, he said. Cohen declined to identify where the brother taught."